Airs Beneath the Moon

by Toby Bishop

  The quirt flew from her fingers and tumbled through the rain after her, end over end.

  A shudder of horror shook Lark’s body. All sound faded from her ears as she watched Mistress Strong fall to the ground, strike the wet soil, and lie utterly, perfectly still.

  The next moments passed in a sort of leaden shock for Lark. She stood trembling, leaning on the girl’s arm, gazing numbly at the motionless form of what had been a woman. She was barely aware that Sunny led Tup neatly to the end of the field, made a cautious descent, and came to ground. Strong Lady, reins flying loosely behind her, circled the field, over and over, as if she didn’t know what to do. She called to her bondmate, and called again. Her wings flapped more and more heavily as she began to tire, until at last she, too, made an awkward, stumbling landing, galloping up to Irina’s body, circling it as if she could persuade her to rise.

  Mistress Winter came toward the hut at a brisk canter, Tup following. When they were half a dozen rods away, Philippa leaped from her saddle to stride toward Lark.

  “Larkyn! I am so relieved to see you alive, I can hardly . . .” And then Mistress Winter broke off, staring at the nameless girl.

  Lark was aware, all at once, of how the girl trembled. Her face had gone pale, and her lips worked as she struggled to speak. Lark looked back at Mistress Winter, mystified.

  “By Kalla’s heels!” Philippa exclaimed. “Pamella Fleckham!”

  FORTY

  THE next hours flowed by in a blur of confused feelings for Philippa. Paramount, of course, was that Larkyn and Black Seraph were safe. Though Larkyn had been badly injured, it seemed someone had cared for her hurts. Black Seraph was his usual self, spirited, independent, but unharmed. The pointless death of Irina Strong oppressed her, another weight on the scales measuring William’s offenses.

  And the discovery of Pamella, Frederick’s lost daughter, hiding in the cramped hut of a witchwoman, staggered her with its implications.

  For some time, she was too busy even to ask questions. She was shocked to see Pamella, whom she remembered as a willful, spoiled girl, acting as nurse to Larkyn, and then come out into the rainsoaked field to help carry Irina Strong into the shelter of the workroom. Sunny and Black Seraph and the bereft Strong Lady, her head hanging, crowded together beneath the eaves, out of the wet. They laid Irina on the floor of the workroom. Pamella went into the hut for a moment, and returned with a ragged blanket, which Philippa unfolded, and stretched over Irina’s broken body. Pamella ran out into the field one more time, coming back with Irina’s quirt, holding it out mutely to Philippa.

  Philippa took it in her own hands, and almost gasped at the sensation. It was William’s, she saw now, black braided leather with the silver ducal insignia affixed to the handle. It burned her palms with a kind of cold fire. Her hands trembled slightly as she laid it across Irina’s breast, even as she chided herself for being credulous.

  In the middle of this operation, the witchwoman herself appeared. She was a wrinkled old peasant named Dorsey, who dropped an absurd curtsy and peered up at Philippa with unrepentant glee.

  Philippa was on her knees beside Irina. She pulled the blanket over her bruised face, lingering a moment when it was done, thinking how high a price Irina had paid for her ambition. When she stood up, she glared at the old woman, seizing the opportunity to vent her anger and grief. “You have had a winged horse and his rider here for a week,” she snapped. “And yet you made no report?”

  “Oh, nay, nay, Mistress,” the crone said. Her hair hung in greasy strands about her head. “Oh, nay,” she said again, “because Larkyn was afraid! Just like Girl, here, not wanting anyone to know. Old Dorsey minds her own business! Uplanders stick together, oh, aye, aye!”

  “This . . .” Philippa used her whole arm to point directly at Pamella. “This girl is no Uplander. She’s a Duke’s daughter, the Lady Pamella! Why did you not tell anyone?”

  The crone seemed unabashed by Philippa’s scolding. She grinned, showing yellowed, sharp teeth. “Haven’t heard a word from her!” she cackled, as if she had won a great argument. She led them into her hut, her boots shuffling across the rough floor. “Don’t know her name, don’t care,” she said over her shoulder. “She lives here with me, does her share of work, and makes no bother of conversation!”

  Philippa glanced at Pamella, who stood near a slanting stone sink, a toddler balanced on one hip, her eyes cast down to her feet. She rounded on the old woman again.

  “You don’t seem to realize the trouble you’re in,” she began, but Larkyn interrupted.

  “Mistress Winter,” she said, a little shakily, but with that familiar lift of her chin. “Please don’t scold Dorsey. She would have sent a message—at least to Brye—but I was afraid that he—that the Duke—”

  Philippa noticed how Pamella avoided her eyes, and she realized that she had not spoken a word. “Lady Pamella,” she said, trying to moderate her tone. “No one expected to see you alive again.”

  Pamella’s lips parted, and her throat worked, but no sound came. The child, a little boy, was as blond as all the Fleckhams, and the eyes fixed on Philippa were midnight dark.

  “She doesn’t talk, Mistress Winter,” Larkyn said quietly. “She can write, though. Her baby’s name is Brandon.”

  Dorsey whirled to gaze with toothy delight at Larkyn. “Brandon, is it? Now isn’t that a wonder! More than a year she’s been with me, and I never knew that! And Pamella, Pamella—now there’s a pretty name!” She spun about in a flourish of grimy wool skirts, and went to build up the fire. “Now, now, do all of you make yourselves comfortable. I’m sorry, Mistress, that I have only the one chair, what Larkyn needs. There’s yon stool, though, if you like.”

  Philippa said coldly, “No, thank you. I will stand, for the moment.” She looked around at the single, dingy room, the narrow cot, the long workroom hung with bundles of things she supposed were herbs and so forth. “The Lady Pamella has not been living here, surely?”

  Dorsey straightened, and faced her. “Oh, aye,” she said. “She had no place to go, and swelling with child, she was.”

  Pamella’s eyes swam with tears, and she hugged the little boy closer. Philippa laid down her hat and gloves, and went to stand beside her. “Pamella,” she said. “Is this child yours? Why did you not come home?”

  “Oh, she won’t tell you,” Dorsey said. She was pumping water to fill a teakettle. She turned with the kettle in her hand. “Haven’t heard her speak a word, ever.”

  But Pamella’s lips parted, and Philippa could see her tongue struggling to form words. Dorsey drew breath, but Philippa put up a hand. “Be quiet,” she commanded.

  The fire crackled in the hearth, and the teakettle began to steam. The little boy squirmed, and Pamella set him down. She made what appeared to be a supreme effort, the veins in her slender throat standing out above the collar of her worn tabard. Her voice was little more than a whisper when it came, and Philippa leaned closer to hear.

  “Father,” Pamella managed, and then she dropped her head into her hands, and sobbed silently.

  Philippa pushed the stool forward, and pressed the weeping girl onto it. She glanced back at the wide-eyed Larkyn, who had one arm around the little boy, and Dorsey, who had poured boiling water in the teapot and laid it on the battered table, and was waving a fetish over it. Dorsey said, as if all that had happened were no more than trivialities, “Well, then, the tea’s ready. Let’s have a cup, and think what to do!”

  PHILIPPA gave up, after a time, trying to understand exactly what had happened to Pamella, and how she came to be living in a witchwoman’s hut in Clellum. The girl’s struggles to speak were painful to watch, and no real information came from them. Philippa ended by patting her shoulder, and assuring her that it would all come right in the end, though she didn’t know if that were true.

  She learned from Larkyn that Black Seraph had been allowed to spend his nights in the workroom, and that Dorsey and Pamella had found feed for him, and wrapped him in
blankets against the chilly mountain nights. Larkyn had slept in the only bed, with the other women and the child sleeping on the floor.

  Philippa, before leaving, offered a stiff apology to the witchwoman. “I was grieved over the loss of a flyer,” she told her. “I was rude to you, and I’m sorry for that.”

  Dorsey nodded. “Oh, aye, aye, old Dorsey understands all about that. You’ll come back for Lark, then? With a cart? She won’t be riding for a time yet.”

  “Her brother will come for her. And for her horse. It’s best for Black Seraph to stay here, I think, just one more day.”

  “Oh, aye, aye, that will do. And Girl?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The witchwoman pointed to Pamella. “You’ll take Girl back where she belongs?”

  Pamella’s eyes brimmed as she waited for Philippa’s answer. Philippa tried to look away, but the events of the last days had laid her heart bare. She took a deep breath. “Pamella. You and I never got along, really, but that was long ago. I don’t understand what’s happened to you.”

  Pamella tried again to speak, spasms of effort making her lips twist. All she could manage was, “William,” before she gave up.

  Philippa stiffened. “William?” Pamella nodded, and looked at her feet. Philippa sighed. This was a burden she wished she did not have to take on, but there was no one else to do it. “Do you want to come with me, Pamella?”

  Pamella’s throat worked. It took her a full minute to scrape out, “Palace,” while shaking her head.

  “Not the Palace. Your mother’s city house, then?”

  Again, Pamella shook her head. More tears fell, and her mouth twisted with grief.

  Behind Philippa, Larkyn spoke. “She can come to us, Mistress Winter.”

  Philippa turned. “The Academy? Larkyn, I don’t think—”

  “I meant Deeping Farm. Brye will take her in. Brandon will be happy there, with Peony, and Nick, and Edmar.”

  Philippa only nodded, and pulled her riding cap from her belt. It was, at least, a practical solution. And until Pamella could explain herself, it probably was best.

  As Philippa pulled on her riding coat and walked out to Sunny, waiting beneath the eaves, she thought of poor Frederick, grieving for his lost daughter. If Pamella had turned up in time . . . Frederick might still be in his rightful place, and William would not have gained the power to hurt them all. She paused, looking back at the firelit group in the hut. Could William have brought this about, somehow?

  Philippa forced herself to turn away, to walk past Irina’s blanketed form. It had been years since she had watched a horsemistress die, and it had grown no easier. The grief in her breast hardened into anger.

  Someday, somehow, William would answer for this.

  As she mounted, and turned Sunny away from the witchwoman’s hut, she imagined Margareth’s wise voice counseling patience. Oh, yes, she told herself, as Sunny began her canter through the damp evening light. Oh, yes, I’ll be patient. But I won’t forget.

  FORTY-ONE

  “I suppose we’ll have to postpone your testing, Larkyn,” Mistress Winter said.

  Lark, leaning on the cane Edmar had cut for her, put down her currycomb, and hobbled to the gate of Tup’s stall. “No, Mistress Winter, please,” she said. “I’ll be back at the Academy after Estian, and I’ll be able to fly! I promise I will!”

  Mistress Winter shook her head. “It seems too soon, after such an injury.” As Lark came through the gate, she added, with a little purse of her lips, “Although, crude though she is, the witchwoman took good care of you.”

  Lark let the remark about Dorsey pass. They had been at Deeping Farm two days, making arrangements for the transfer of Irina Strong’s body to her family, and settling Pamella and little Brandon with the Hamleys. Mistress Winter’s eyes had not brightened once in that time, and Lark knew she grieved for the loss of a horsemistress, even a troublesome one. Strong Lady was already beginning to show signs of distress at the loss of her bondmate, and Lark knew that weighed on Mistress Winter, too.

  Mistress Winter watched Pamella with an odd expression, as if not quite believing her own eyes. Pamella had still said nothing, but she had already found work to do around the farmhouse, helping Peony in the kitchen, carting laundry out to hang on the clotheslines, even bringing in lettuce and searching out early tomatoes in the kitchen garden. This, too, Mistress Winter observed with a furrow in her brow, and Lark could only think that seeing a Duke’s daughter doing farm work was outside her experience. Brandon followed his mother about, clutching a wooden toy carved for him by Edmar. Edmar, of course, was almost as silent as Pamella herself, but Brandon had taken to leaning against his knee as he carved, babbling and laughing. Edmar nodded to the little boy as if it all made perfect sense.

  None of this seemed unnatural to Lark. Everyone she had ever known worked hard from morning till night, even at the Academy. She supposed Hester could have had a different life, if she had wanted. Perhaps, when she arrived with her mamá this afternoon, to carry away Irina Strong’s body in her carriage, she could ask her.

  “Mistress Winter,” she said, hobbling alongside her instructor, trying to hide the pain it caused her. “I want to stay with my class. With Hester, and Anabel.”

  Mistress Winter started to say something, but the sounds of hoofbeats from the lane distracted her. Lark followed her gaze. A chill spread through her belly. Automatically, she took a step back toward the barn, as if to stand between Tup and her enemy.

  Duke William approached the barnyard at a posting trot, his black coat flying out behind him. His brown gelding was lathered and blowing, and stood trembling as William dismounted and tossed the reins over the post. William tugged down his vest with his hands, and smoothed the tails of his coat.

  Beside Lark, Philippa Winter stood stiff and straight. “William,” she said in an icy tone. “I wish you would not abuse your horse.”

  “Mind your own business, Philippa,” he snarled at her. “Where’s Irina?”

  Lark turned her eyes up to Mistress Winter, wondering what she would say.

  A ripple seemed to pass over Philippa Winter’s face, and something hard gleamed from her eyes. She lifted her arm to point to the slanting door beneath the farmhouse, and she spoke with a knife-edge to her voice. “Irina is there. In the coldcellar. Awaiting her burial.”

  William’s eyelids flickered, once, and his features froze. Philippa and William stared at each other, narrow-eyed, neither moving, barely breathing.

  “What happened?” William finally asked, his lips stiff.

  “She attacked me,” Philippa said. Lark thought she could feel the cold fire of her fury in her own body, and she wondered that Duke William did not step back, away from it. “I hold you responsible, William.”

  “You killed her, then,” was his answer.

  Philippa’s indrawn breath was loud in the silence. “I defended myself.”

  He leaned forward, his eyes glittering beneath half-lowered lids. “We will see what the Council has to say about that.”

  “The Council?” Philippa took a step forward, and now the Duke did step back. “The Council, William? I hardly think you want to take this before the Council. You abducted a winged horse!”

  “I did not.”

  “Your people did. They took him to Fleckham House—and we saw you there!”

  “Who will believe you, Philippa? You’re guilty of a horsemistress’s death.”

  “What did you expect her to do, William? Kill me, and Winter Sunset? Bring you the little black, and let him go mad without his bondmate?”

  William shrugged. “It was a mistake, to take the horse and not the rider. Jinson should have known.”

  Lark opened her lips to protest, but Mistress Winter shot her a swift, repressive glance, and she closed her mouth again. The Duke and the horsemistress glared at each other, and the only sound was that of Strong Lady, pulling against her tether, nickering, stamping her feet.

  “Irina’s
horse will have to be destroyed,” Mistress Winter said. “And that, too, is on your shoulders.”

  William sighed, as if it were all a game he had grown tired of. “She had my quirt,” he said lightly, as if they were speaking of someone who had merely stepped out of the room. “I want it back.”

  “By all means,” Philippa said. “Help yourself.”

  William’s jaw muscles flexed, and another silence stretched before he turned his black eyes on Lark. “So, brat,” he said. “You simply wouldn’t listen to reason, would you?”

  Lark felt as if her tongue were as paralyzed as Pamella’s. Because she had no answer, she lifted her chin, and tried her best to stare into the Duke’s eyes as bravely as Philippa had.

  His lip curled. “Very well,” he said. “Your family will pay. Take a good look at all of this, brat, because it is forfeit.” He made a gesture that included the barn, the fields, the kitchen garden, the farmhouse. “You and your bumpkin brothers will have to find other . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and his eyes, looking past Lark to the farmhouse, widened.

  Lark, turning awkwardly on her cane, followed his gaze.

  In the upper-story window, looking out of Lark’s own bedroom, was Pamella. Her white-blond hair was unmistakable, despite the gleam of sun on the glass. She held something in her arms, sheets or towels, which dropped to the floor as she beheld her older brother.

  In a low, tense voice, Mistress Winter said, “Larkyn. Hurry. Keep Pamella indoors.”

  William stared at her, and then at Larkyn. “What has she told you?” he said, his voice cracking at the end of the question.

  “Larkyn. Go!”

  Lark went. She hobbled across the yard and passed beneath the rue-tree, coming into the kitchen and closing the door firmly behind her. She peered out past the foliage to see Mistress Winter with her hands on her hips, and Duke William turning toward the coldcellar. His man, Slater, made a belated appearance on a dusty piebald horse, with the Master Breeder just behind him on a tired bay. By the time they dismounted and reached the Duke, William had gone into the coldcellar and come back with his quirt under his arm. He was already replacing his hat and drawing on his gloves.